Vantage Point: Unsound, unstable, insufficient and irrational
By:
Frank Pugh
Published: June 1, 2010
Those four simple words are all you really need to know to become an advocate for CSBA’s school finance lawsuit. What they describe is the system for funding public schools in California—a system that is aligned neither with student needs nor with the state’s own required educational programs. And, after years of civil dialogue with the state’s leaders—which more often than not has amounted to begging, pleading and cajoling to do something about it, we’ve now taken matters into our own hands.
Our historic lawsuit—Robles-Wong v. California—has been referred to by more than one education reporter as “the biggest school funding case since Serrano v. Priest in the 1970s.” It’s important to note that we’re not alone in this endeavor—the long list of plaintiffs includes the Association of California School Administrators, the California State PTA, nine school districts and more than 60 students and parents. Together, we are all committed to seeing this battle through until the day arrives that we can finally say that students are being afforded an opportunity to master the educational programs that the state requires.
But while there is a broad coalition behind the lawsuit, there is no question that none of this would have happened had it not been for the years of work by CSBA and its Education Legal Alliance. As far back as 2004, when the ink was barely dry on the settlement in the Williams v. California case, it was clearly evident that Williams was not going to result in the kind of seismic shift needed in the funding of California schools. Around that time, well before I became a CSBA officer, a group of our staff met with Michael Rebell, who had played a key role in a New York state education funding case, to compare notes and begin laying the groundwork for what such a case might look like in California.
I don’t think anyone realized back then just how long it would take. But it’s a credit to our legal team—people like Dick Hamilton, director of our Education Legal Alliance, Abe Hajela, special counsel, and Deborah Caplan and Gene Hill, from the Olson, Hagel and Fishburn law firm—that they insisted it was more important for us to do this the right way than it was to do it quickly. California’s constitution and method of funding education are unique, and it was critical that the language of the suit reflect those realities. So this is not what the legal community would refer to as a traditional adequacy lawsuit. It does not ask the state for a specific amount of money or source of revenue, but simply that the court declare the current education finance system unconstitutional.
Everyone also needs to understand that, even though years of hard work have already gone into this effort, there could be years of hard work ahead of us in order to ensure that the “remedy” actually achieves the goals that are outlined in the suit. The filing of the suit was a great day for CSBA, but just the first of what promises to be a long line of great days ahead of us.